The Book That Held Her Heart

I have such mixed feelings about this one. In some ways I loved what it was trying to say and resonated with the driving significance of books and libraries. But on the other hand, the implementation of this theme felt heavy-handed and lost much of the magic of the first two in the series.

I typically tend to avoid Nazi Germany in fiction, not because it doesn't have an important place in fiction, but I have to be in the right mindset for it and an epic fantasy in an entirely fictional library was the last place I expected to find holocaust fiction. However, in the end, this inclusion does make sense in the greater context of a library, always burning, that stretches across time and space. So I'm not mad about it, just caught off-guard.

Livira takes a backseat in this one and I missed her tenacity, Arpix of all people had the most to say in this one and he ended up being the most interesting to read. The library exploration that I loved in the first two is also lacking but instead we get more of the different versions of the surrounding city, and that had to be my favourite part, when they were just exploring.

Mark Lawrence has perfected wonky timelines all coming together and while the ending was bittersweet, the conclusion fit.